Page 99 occurs in Chapter 2 of my dissertation, which is broadly about the historical dialectics of symbolism relevant to a majority Mayan municipality in Guatemala called Cunén. Chapter 2 reviews the earliest documentation of Cunenteco, Cunén’s unique Mayan language, which many people currently consider to be a variety of K’iche’. Cunenteco is not a recognized language among linguists nor by the Guatemalan government.

Page 99 serves the larger argument in a number of ways. On page 99 I am discussing the linguistic documentation of Robert Burkitt, an archaeologist and linguist who visited Cunén and surrounds in the early 20^th century. Cunén is plurilingual; some speak Cunenteco, most speak K’iche’, many speak Spanish. By foregrounding Burkitt’s documentation (including documentation of uniquely Cunenteco forms, such as kḯstaw ‘chin’) on page 99, I am showing that Cunenteco is not my invention, and, in fact, it has been documented as long as linguists have visited Cunén, as Burkitt was the first. Furthermore, Burkitt not only documented Cunenteco, he documented a local pragmatic paradigm where Cunenteco and K’iche’ were alternating sociolinguistic registers for local society, as demonstrated by the various forms Burkitt includes which blend features of Cunenteco and K’iche’. This pushes the horizon of language contact which I have also documented today back as far as the documentation goes, and likely far beyond.

Such documentation serves my argument that Cunenteco has long been a distinctive local language, despite the fact that most outside observers have hitherto considered it a strange variety of K’iche’. Burkitt was the first to document Cunenteco’s phonemic high tone, as I show on page 99. No other language within the K’iche’an Proper subgrouping of Mayan to which Cunenteco belongs has a high tone. Burkitt’s documentation gives independent depth and confirmation to my findings. This serves the speakers of Cunenteco, some of whom (that is, those who I have worked with) desire greater recognition for the distinctiveness of their language.

My dissertation can be found here: https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/records/gsc29-s9v80